


Alone With You

by Decaykid



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, Childhood Trauma, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:36:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21921154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decaykid/pseuds/Decaykid
Summary: After a confrontation with Diego, Klaus feels exhausted. He's been running for far too long, he needs everything to just stop for a moment, just long enough for him to catch his breath.He just wants to be alone.Alone with Ben.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves/Klaus Hargreeves, Horrance - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 156





	Alone With You

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry Kliego shippers. DX
> 
> Loosely inspired by Hostage by Billie Eilish.

Klaus barely slams the door closed behind him before the first tears roll down his cheeks. He fights the oncoming sob, chokes it out and it turns into a shallow gasp for air. For a moment, his breathe is caught in his throat and feels as though he’s hanging, suspended before a free fall, stomach in his throat and his heart pounding in his head, then more tears fall and everything comes crashing down. He places one hand over his mouth, the other over his stomach as though he could somehow physically pack all these emotions away back into whatever hole he’d previously stuffed them in. Then again, he’s never been good at fighting.

There’s a hard, rapid knock on the door. Klaus feels the banging in his chest, in time with his heart.

“Klaus,” Diego says, bargains, on the other side of the door, “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Klaus parts his fingers over his lips.

“Just leave me the fuck alone please!” He yells, pleads.

There’s a pause, then a shuffle of feet, then footsteps fading away.

No, Klaus has never been a fighter. He’s always preferred avoidance tactics in the face of adversary.

Klaus leans heavily against the wall opposite the door he’d stormed through. He sobs, it’s a choked, broken sound and slowly he slides down the length of the wall until he’s sitting on the floor, curled around his legs tucked against his chest, arms around his knees and he cries into the ripped denim of his jeans.

“I just want to be left alone.” He calls out, though he knows it’s futile, Diego probably isn’t even in the building anymore.

There’s a sound from the bed, one of unformed words being spoken, the mouth moving before the mind, eagerness betraying intent.

“I would if I could, but...” Ben says with a forced laughed, the Klaus always does but it sounds uncomfortable, unnatural, clunky, like carrying a heavy weight that’s awkward to balance.

Klaus has always been the one to lighten a mood. Ben’s only known to stay quiet, inconvenient, like the shadows.

“I could step out of the room, if you...” Ben trails, tries to amend. He’s bound to Klaus, but he can make himself sparse if need be.

Unable to speak, Klaus merely shakes his head. Klaus wants to shut the world out, the raves, the rehab centers, the back streets and alleyways, the jail cells and back seats of police vehicles. Everything is too much and he get s needs it to stop, just needs a moment to catch his breath. And Ben, Ben’s not a part of that outside world, those masks and facade and charades. Ben knows of the terror, of the nightmares and insecurities that eat him alive from the inside out like a weed taken root in the garden, killing anything of worth or beauty. Ben’s the only one who really knows, who really understands....

Unlike Diego.

Diego with his uniform and badge and authority.

Klaus had been picked up a few hours ago, took a ride in the back of a police vehicle. He was going to be detained for the night, until one of the officers filling out the paperwork took notice to the tattoo on his wrist. That’s when the paperwork was discarded and Diego was called in. Of course he was furious, seething with quiet rage as he stared intently at the floor while his fellow officers filled him in on the details. Klaus had sat there silently, desperately wanting Diego to look up, then finally their eyes met and Klaus wished he’d kept staring at the ground, his gaze burning like ice.

“My brothers got a problem,” Diego had said, tone calm but pointed, restrained, “but he’s working to get cleaned up, right Klaus?”

The two policemen had shared a look.

“Diego, that’s not why we brought him in...” one said.

“He was in the red light district.”

Diego’s face has gone blank in a way that made Klaus’ blood run cold.

Diego yelled the entire ride over, furious and shaking, and Klaus had yelled back, but he wasn’t heard. He couldn’t explain himself, he wasn’t getting money for drugs, he’d gotten out of rehab just two days ago. With nothing but the clothes on his back, he had nothing to pawn but needed money, for food, for a room, maybe some booze, or a pack of cigarettes.

Diego has wanted to take Klaus to his place.

“Why would you do that yourself?” He’d yelled, veins bulging around his neck, “I’m just a phone call away!”

But Klaus didn’t want to stay with Diego, he didn’t want to look at Diego, or talk to Diego, or be trapped in that car with Diego. So Diego got him a room for the night, the one he’s in now, because he feels guilty or some sense of responsibility or worse yet, pity.

Klaus’ fingers dig into the faux leather of his jacket, he sobs so hard he gags himself and he struggles to even his breathing out.

Here he is, at twenty five years old, so far down on rock bottom that he doesn’t even have money for food, and he’s at the mercy of his brother.

“I’m so useless.” Klaus chokes out, almost unintelligibly, and Ben frowns from the bed.

“You’re not useless Klaus, you’re just... nonconforming.”

“No, Diego is right, I-I’m useless, I’m just a waste!”

“Klaus-“ Ben says with an air of reluctant disapproval, and Klaus knows he hates trying to pull Klaus from the pits of self loathing and despair, but everything is in horrific clarity when he’s sober.

“He has a fucking job, Ben! And Vanya, she’s playing in an orchestra! In concert halls!! And Allison is making movies! And Luther, Luther is on the goddamn moon! And what am I doing? What do I have to my name?”

His voice cracks on the last word, and Klaus struggles to regain his composure.

“It wasn’t s-supposed to be like this...”

It was just supposed to keep the ghosts away, but then it did more than that, it made Reginald tolerable, made the training and the missions more bearable, made being chipped away at like a marble slab, Reginald cutting away all his ugly pieces to make him into something palpable and easy to mold, but each time he took something, it took a bit more than the last to keep him numb, and now it has grown, spiraled, so far beyond his control... did he ever have any control?

“Well, seeing as I’m dead, that puts you further along in life than me.” Ben says, if only to pull Klaus from his head.

Klaus rolls his eyes.

“Great, I’m not dead, I’m just the family disappointment.”

Klaus sighs, closes his eyes despite the sting. The crying has stopped, leaving his face wet, his voice hoarse and his body feeling hollow.

“It... it just... it feels like, I dunno, like everyone’s moved on, but I’m... stuck.”

“Left behind.” Ben says solemnly, as though he’s just spoken a heavy truth.

Klaus huffs in amusement as he wipes at his cheeks.

When they were fourteen, Ben and Klaus had made a club, the “Left Behind Club”, they were the only two members, since they were the only two who were less than enthused about their powers, reluctant and fearful even, about having them. Neither one felt like superheroes, but like they were burdened with a curse. They were left out, or left behind from the others, forgotten. Those were the days before Klaus’ addiction got serious, and before Ben had passed.

“Dead and Disappointment are Left Behind once again.”

“Guess it’s kinda our shtick, huh?”

Klaus doesn’t answer, and Ben doesn’t try to break the silence.

Klaus thinks back on those days, how daunting and demanding they seemed, never ending. If only he had known that was the best it was ever going to be. He’s been so unhappy for so so long, the house he grew up in felt just as unforgiving as the mausoleum he had spent his early nights in, as cold as the look Reginald would give him as he begged and pleaded with big, wet tears. He spent his whole childhood longing to get away, then when Ben passed he ran, metaphorically, and hasn’t looked back since. Now he feels exhausted and has realized he’s not only rootless, but he’s lost all that time and for what? He hasn’t found some magical safe haven where he feels fulfilled and whole.

But he had known a time when he did...

Untrusting of his legs, Klaus slowly stands, feeling like a newborn fawn. He walks to the bed and climbs onto the side that Ben isn’t on, coat and boats and all.

“Let’s just stay here for tonight.” He says, because he’s tired in a way sleep won’t fix, because he’s not ready to face the world again just yet, because he’s only just stopped running and he’s turned cautiously around and he’s wondering about the what-ifs. Just for tonight, just for right now, he wants to pretend like things are different.

“Can you... lay down on the bed with me?” Klaus asks, almost shyly, almost vulnerable, “I don’t want to feel alone.”

Ben looks perplexed for just a brief moment before obliging- he knows Klaus knows he doesn’t need sleep, and Ben’s presence is heard and seen, not felt, so this must be about something else, something Ben doesn’t dare ask about.

He’s not certain he’d get a straight answer from Klaus anyways.

Ben lays down on the mattress, legs together, arms at his side and deciding he must look too stiff, he relaxes his stance a bit by moving his legs apart and his arms away from his sides in the hopes of appearing more natural, human, alive. Klaus lays down as well, in a similar manner, and once he’s comfortably situated he turns his head to look at the space between he and Ben. Slowly, he inches his hand towards Ben’s closer and closer until it looks as though they could be touching, would be touching, if Ben had a corporeal form. And wonders what this moment would be like, if Ben were here, if Klaus hadn’t just gotten out of rehab, if he’d never started running. He thinks back to when they were children, when the nightmares made the dark their biggest foe, how they could always find solstice in each other’s bed, beneath the sheets and in each other’s embrace. He thinks of when they were teens, and no matter how bad of a day they had, no matter how bad a class, a training session or mission had gone, their bed was always a safe place, a haven to retire to at night, where all the bad stuff couldn’t touch them. Klaus aches for that now, for Ben’s arms around him, solid and present and warm, safe and encompassing and Klaus would always press his face to Ben’s neck, breathe him in until he fell asleep and when they woke in the mornings their legs would be just as tangled as their bodies in the bed sheets. Now, with their hands touching if they could, Klaus pretends he could have that, pretends that the only reason he doesn’t feel the brush of fingertips against his own if because he just hasn’t moved his hand. He pretends he could hear Ben’s heartbeat, if he would lay his head on his chest. He pretends Ben could hold him, if Klaus would just hold him first. He pretends the infinite possibilities are there, if he so chose to grab them.

And it helps. It eases the raw, gnawing feeling like a wound that’s been reopened in his chest. With Ben here, he doesn’t care that he isn’t successful like the others, because he and Ben have always done their own thing, and being like the others never mattered as long as Klaus has Ben around. And for a moment, that emptiness is almost gone, filled up by fantasy and make-believe of a time when everything isn’t as it is. Klaus stares at their hands not quite touching until his breathing slows and his limbs feel heavy and it gets harder to keep his eyes opened, but he can’t let himself fall asleep- once his eyes close, the illusion is over, and Ben becomes a ghost again, and as Ben fades away, reality will set back in. So Klaus rolls on to his side and after a moment of hesitation, Ben does too, with one arm resting beneath his head, and the other propping him up, as though he’d roll over with it there. Klaus mimics Ben’s pose, and he once again slides his hand forward until they could almost be touching.

There, on the bed, with mere inches between them, the two stare at each other, wordless. Ben isn’t entirely sure what’s going on but the moment seems fragile, intense. 

“What do you want me to say?” He asks, because he had to break the tension, because Klaus is looking at him with a heavy look, like something full of sorrow and regret, and Ben has never known Klaus to regret.

Klaus smiles, though his eyes shine with I shed tears in the iridescent light from the lamp on the nightstand.

“What is there to say?” He asks, the fantasy is breaking. Klaus wants so badly to feel Ben’s arms around him, to be held, to have his pieces made whole.

It feels like he’s losing him all over again.

“I need a hit.” Klaus says as he sits up suddenly, words wet and he wipes the tears away before they fall.

Ben’s stomach drops. He doesn’t understand what’s going on, what Klaus needs from him, but he wants to be it, wants so badly to be whatever it is Klaus needs. But Klaus is always running away, always numbing himself. Why can’t Klaus just let him help him?

“Can you just stay?” Ben asks, uncertain and honest.

Klaus stops on his way to the door. There’s something there in Ben’s words, and Klaus wonders if Ben also aches for something different, something better.

He stands there for several long moments, weighing the decision heavily. Then slowly, mercifully, he turns back to bed, kicks off his boots, shrugs off his coat, and climbs back into the bed.

Ben sighs, relieved, then he settles back down.

“We can figure stuff out in the morning.” He says, but Klaus ignores him as he gets comfortable beneath the bed sheets.

As he lays there, slowly drifting off to sleep, even though he’s dead, Klaus can feel Ben’s gaze on him and Klaus indulges his fantasy once more, knowing it’ll all be but a dream come daybreak.


End file.
